


but the fire is coming

by Harlow R (harlowrd)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 11:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1303195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harlowrd/pseuds/Harlow%20R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'll just keep each other as safe as they can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but the fire is coming

Nights are dark in the Argo, but the rumbling of the engine across the entire structure is almost soothing. Those are the little things Annabeth learned to notice back when the reason she couldn’t sleep was Percy’s mysterious and painful absence from her life. Now, it’s something else altogether – and at least he’s with her, not only in general but specifically _right here_ , in her bed, body curled around hers and arm encircling her waist. (It wasn’t long until they realized sleeping apart wasn’t going to work for them, not after Tartarus – not with the nightmares and the fear and the loneliness. So, the first time, Percy snuck in with his blankets under an arm and lay down on the floor until she woke up crying, that night; then he climbed on the bed with her and never left her since.)

See, Annabeth learned to live in fear. It’s something all demigods go through on some level; but truthfully, before Percy’s disappearance she’d developed a kind of confidence with which to face her unusual life. But then there was that, and then her solo quest, and then Tartarus, and she’s been broken every which way and the pieces don’t feel like they fit together anymore. She read once about _kintsugi_ – fixing broken things with gold-sprinkled resin until they are something different, something more beautiful than they were before; it fascinated her at the time, because on an instinctive level it was what she hoped she could do with her own life. Now, however, it feels like all that is left of her is a pulsating mass of constant terror, living each day with the knowledge that herself and all the people she cares about are in imminent danger and there’s nothing she can do about it.

So she lies awake on her back and listens to the engine and worries, guts churning at the thought of what’s ahead for them. 

"What's the matter?” she hears Percy ask next to her ear. Startled, she wonders how long he’s been awake.

"Just thinking.”

“About?"

As if it isn’t obvious. "About Tartarus.”

“Oh. What about it?”

Annabeth doesn’t reply immediately. There are things she’s afraid to touch, words she’s afraid to say – almost as if Percy’s about to slip away from her fingers if she says the wrong thing. She doesn’t know what the wrong thing is, but sometimes she gets certain feelings. Like now.

“Annabeth, what about it?”

Percy pulls and she goes all in. “Just that…I’m sorry.”

He sighs. “Sorry about what?”

She can feel a tear sliding down her left temple and hopes he can’t tell. But then her voice comes out and it’s thick with grief. “That you fell in. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Annabeth,” he says, sounding weary. His fingers come up to wipe the tear away.

“But—“

“It’s not.”

“Per—“

“It’s just not.”

“I—“

“It’s not your fault.”

“Just—“

“It’s not your fault. Say it. Say it’s not your fault.”

She hesitates, then finally murmurs: “It’s not my fault.”

His hand gently turns her face toward him. “Again.”

“It’s not my fault.”

“Good."

Annabeth shifts her body so that she’s fully facing him. "What I was going to say…what I need to tell you is that I'm sorry this happened to you— let me finish!” she warns when he draws breath to interrupt again. "To us, but especially to you. Because this had nothing to do with you, just me. And what I’m most sorry for is that…I’m so, so glad that you were with me.”

He takes a few moments to answer and in the dark she’s scared that was it, that was the line she wasn’t supposed to cross, the thing that finally pulled him away from her like she feared all along, but when he speaks again his voice is gentle and she can tell he’s smiling. 

"Me too.”

"Percy…"

"I am,” he reassures her. "I would've gone on your quest with you if I could have – you know that. I was freaking out when I found out you were hurt.”

She wonders what he means at first, and then it hits her. After all they went through afterward, it seems like nothing in comparison. "My ankle?”

"Yeah.”

"Oh."

They’re silent for a few moments. “Annabeth,” he begins quietly. "I would never have let you fall on your own. I need you to understand that. I would NEVER ever have let her take you. Ever.”

She's reminded that although she defeated Arachne, thoroughly outsmarted her, Percy was the one to actually kill her. It stings a bit – maybe it's her hubris, maybe it's just regular old feminist pride, but Annabeth wishes she had slayed Arachne herself. It feels like a loose end emotionally; it makes her feel a little like a fraud. She never got her closure. But alongside those feelings, perhaps despite them, it warms her heart to remember him swinging his sword behind her and stabbing the source of her problems in the gut. It is thrilling and frightening, to love someone this much. To need someone this much.

Annabeth wraps her arms around his middle and buries her face in his neck, in lieu of an answer. He hugs her back and sighs, but it sounds relieved rather than weary, this time.

Her voice is muffled. “What’s going to happen to us, now?”

It’s mostly rhetorical, but he answers anyway. “I don’t know."


End file.
